OVERVIEW

Social robots are expected to interact safely and efficiently with people, as they add value to health-care, education, entertainment, care-giving, and other aspects of society. As research advances towards the integration of robots into our society, there is an increased need to pay adequate attention to the quality of the interaction between robots, humans and the environment as well as the safety of this interaction. Design of social robots should take into account user safety, avoiding any negative impact on their well-being and improving their quality of life.

This conference is intended to share knowledge about technological opportunities and challenges regarding different aspects of social robot companions and start a discussion within the scientific community about issues concerning safety. The student conference is jointly organized by two Horizon-2020 European Union projects which are training programs with a special focus on Human Robot Interaction (HRI).

The SECURE project http://www.secure-robot.eu/ aims to incorporate intelligent safety awareness into dynamic and unpredictable human or domestic environments and into interactions with robots. The SOCRATES project http://www.socrates-project.eu/ has the goal of developing the field of social robotics with an application focus on robotics for an aging population. The aim of the conference is to bring researchers together to present ongoing research and to discuss the state of the art and future directions.

SCOPE

The aim of the student conference is to provide a forum to disseminate and foster discussion on recent and significant research within social robotics focused towards quality and safety in HRI.